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Recently I have been listening to Michael Stelzner’s Social Media Marketing Podcasts via Social Media Examiner and have both learned a lot and enjoyed Michael’s style.

He tends towards NOT over-complicating what businesses should be doing to effectuvely leverage social media platforms for marketing communications (MarComm) and customer relationship marketing (CRM), which I appreciate. The periodic doses of humor Michael injects into his podcasts make them a resource that I continue to use and sometimes listen to more than once.

Shown below, I have displayed the latest blog post from Social Media Examiner that describes and provides access to Michael’s podcasts for ADM Professional Community members to take advantage of and try out…

More and more I am finding that there are great resources for sparking innovation within the auto industry that are available from outside of the automotive specific vertical… Learning what works for other retailers and businesses can be a great source of inspiration for those of us who specialize in automotive marketing.

Selling With Social Media: A New Direction for Businesses

To learn about why you need to rethink the dealership showroom sales process in this social age, listen to this interview with Tom Martin for the Social Media Marketing podcast.

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner designed to help busy automotive marketers and dealership owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, listen to an interview with Tom Martin, author of The Invisible Sale: How to Build a Digitally Powered Marketing and Sales System to Better Prospect, Qualify and Close Leads. His agency is Converse Digital. Tom shares the concept of painless prospecting and propinquity.

You’ll learn how to succeed in the changing social media sales landscape, and how your business can embrace these new strategies.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Tom believes success is more about how buyers buy than the way dealerships and businesses want to sell. With the Internet, people can hide behind the anonymity of Google search.

You can do all your pre-purchase research without having to talk to a salesperson. You only have to talk to a person once you’ve made a short list of car dealerships you are interested in and want to test drive the vehicle before closing the deal.

Buyers use Google search for pre-purchase research.

Today’s buyer prefers this process, as it’s easier and more efficient. With this in mind, companies have to adjust.

In the early days, the power was with the salesperson, but with the knowledge available online today, the power is in the hands of the consumer.

Tom says as a business, you have to stop thinking about how you sell because you don’t really sell anymore. Instead you help buyers make a buying decision. When they make their decision, hopefully it will be in your favor. Although it won’t always be the case.

You’ll discover how your system needs to be set up properly and the approach you need to consider.

If you have a really good product or service, more often than not, you will win the conversion. Most people are turned off by people selling to them. The best way is to show them that you’re willing to help and that you always have their best interests at heart.

Listen to the show to find out more about how the approach to sales has changed.

An example of a business that has embraced new ways to sell

Tom talks about a camera store called Adorama based in New York that he used as a case study in his book, The Invisible Sale. Adorama only has one store, but does business in all 50 US states and 5 countries.

The camera store Adorama is used as a case study in The Invisible Sale.

Adorama has two sides to their business, B2C and B2B. Regardless of which side you look at, they approach it the same way. Their philosophy is to sell by sharing original educational content.

Even though it’s a photography store, they sell more than just cameras. They’ve built a Learning Center that includes Adorama TV, which is one of their huge content pieces. The Learning Center is a treasure trove of educational content.

There is everything from learning how to shoot a photo to discovering the best equipment.

Although their approach is to educate, when you watch one of their videos, you’ll notice easy-to-follow links to products below the video. You’ll find out how they used YouTube to allow people to reach that product.

Products mentioned throughout Adorama’s videos are linked for easy access.

In 2010, they saw a general growth curve, mainly due to the educational content they provide.

The moral of the lesson is that if you can make your buyer smarter and better because they are doing business with you, then Tom believes you will succeed in selling more to that buyer.

Listen to the show to hear why Tom relates it to fly-fishing and how it’s the same with modern content marketing.

What is a social agent and why is it important?

Tom describes a social agent as someone who doesn’t necessarily buy from you, but recommends you to a friend or colleague who might buy from you. A lot of the time, social agents can be your most valuable customers that you never do business with. They’re the best customers you’ll have.

You need to draw in your social agents through educational pieces. A relationship is formed with your brand or company when they see value in what you are doing. You’ll learn how Tom became a huge social agent for Adorama.

Listen to the show to find out the importance of empowering everyone to be a social agent for your company.

In The Invisible Sale, you reveal a process that helps people sell without cold-calling and advertising. Can you explain the process?

Tom calls the process “painless prospecting.” The concept is a spin on inbound marketing. The core difference is that most content and inbound strategies leverage search and keyword optimization.

As more and more businesses discover and deploy keyword optimization and SEO strategies, Tom believes that only so many will win the battle. It’s going to get more competitive and much more difficult.

Propinquity is a scientific theory that powers the formation of relationships. It says that if you bump into someone a lot, the higher the likelihood of you touching them more often, reading their content or meeting them in person, the more likely you are to like that person, providing you like them each time you meet.

You need to build your dealership success on the concept of propinquity.

Tom’s painless prospecting philosophy is that you don’t walk away from SEO, but do get off your own blog.

You need to think and care more about putting great content on other people’s blogs. Tom advises you to treat every blog as your own. When you put content in these places, they are called Propinquity Points.

You’ll learn how to develop a strategy for this to make sure you stay top of mind.

Tom shares a quick overview of where you can find places to provide content, but there is a whole chapter (Building a Painless Prospecting Platform) in his book where the process is laid out.

Check out the chapter on Building a Painless Prospecting Platform.

If you pay attention to what is written by auto industry experts or your OEM you can usually sit down and list all the places that your prospective customers congregate online and offline. You’ll learn where these places might be. If you know the auto industry well enough, you will already know of 7-10 places without thinking. This is your first list.

You’ll discover how social listening software such as Radian6 or Sysomos can be beneficial to finding propinquity points for you.

Sysomos can help you find propinquity points for your business.

Once you find these points, you can create more opportunities for people to stumble across you and your brand. It’s a great way to get a good positive impression.

When you get off your own blog, your buyer doesn’t have to be in active research mode to stumble upon you. They might then click through to your blog and possibly sign up to read it. You’ll learn what can happen if you only stay on your own blog.

You could have people sign up to your blog who weren’t in active research mode.

You’ll discover why you do your best content work when you write for someone else.

Tom advises you to write 4 or 5 posts for other blogs, staged over a 2-week period and keep an eye on your Google Analytics to see what happens. You’ll notice that you drive more traffic back to your site.

The more you write for these larger audiences, the bigger your chance of people coming over to your site to check out your content. For every 100 people who read your content somewhere else, around 5% will convert to signups. This is how to build propinquity at a blog base.

Tom is convinced that the way to win today is to get out there and treat yourself like a media empire.

Listen to the show to learn about the invisible component in Tom’s book title.

What automotive marketers should avoid when using content to drive sales

Tom says there are two things automotive marketers should avoid. Most dealership marketing managers produce content at the wrong level. It’s normally the same single unit of content across their blog and podcast. So most feel that one blog post a week is enough without writing for others.

First you have to think about content creation as an ecosystem. You should never create one piece of content once. You should look for ways to repurpose it or even rechannel it.

Make sure you repurpose your blog content.

You’ll learn about the ways you can turn one piece of content into more content.

Secondly, Tom states that there is a belief, especially among inbounders, that every piece of content needs to have a call to action. Although research proves calls to action get more conversions, Tom doesn’t really believe it. He feels there is still value in pure education.

You need to go out and educate your buyer. Don’t ask or expect anything in return. Tom states that most buyers know how to buy; you shouldn’t need to rely on a call to action for them to have enough confidence to contact you.

Listen to the show to find out why your content should always be of value.

This Week’s Social Media Question

“As an artist, sometimes it will take years between contacting potential collectors and receiving a commission or a purchase. Are there specific social media tools that can be used to help develop, encourage and maintain these long-term relationships, so that the leads don’t go cold and people will recommend you to their friends, when at times they are not necessarily looking to buy themselves?” — DebKArt.

This is a great question on how to keep top of mind with prospects who aren’t ready to buy.

The first thing I would recommend is to make sure you listen to this particular podcast for some great ideas. Here are a few examples of what you could do with your business.

Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:

Create time-lapse videos that showcase your processes

Create educational pieces

Become the conduit to prospects

When you put yourself in the position of the resource person rather than the salesperson, every time you communicate with prospects, it’s a way to stay top of mind. If, and when, they are ready to buy, they are more likely to come back to you or pass your details on to another prospect. You need to have regular touch points.

You’ll hear an example of what I received from people in the voice talent industry when I was a prospect and how my realtor markets his business using social media.

I hope you find this helpful. Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how this works for you.

Facebook Post Timing: Which Days of the Week Have the Best Engagement Rate Potential for Automotive Marketers?

Car Dealers and Automotive Marketing Professionals are less likely to post on Facebook on the weekend, and that seems like it might be a good decision, according to new study from Socialbakers…

The research is based on an analysis of almost 2.9 million Facebook posts from 23,000 business and brand pages over a 2-month period. The researchers looked at the percentage of posts that were created on each day of the week, then looked at each day’s “engagement rate potential.”

Here’s how the researchers determined engagement rate potential (contrary to some press reports, the figures do not reflect actual engagement rates):

“Socialbakers first looked at the 4,000 most engaging posts from the analyzed sample. Then, to calculate Monday’s engagement rate potential, for example, they calculated the number of those top posts that were created on a Monday and then divided that number by the total number of posts published on Mondays. They repeated that calculation for each day of the week, and then made the resulting percentages relative to each other. (In so doing, they controlled for the variances in number of posts created on each day of the week.)”

Monday emerges as the best performer, with its relative percentage at 7.1%. What that means, then, is that posts created on Monday were 7.1% more likely to rank among the top posts than the average post created on any single day. (Alternatively: the share of posts created on Mondays making it into the top posts by engagement rate was 7.1% higher than the overall share.) By contrast, Saturday (-12.1%) and Sunday (-5.3%) were the worst performers.

So are automotive consumers less engaged on the weekend? Or is it that dealers and their social media marketing service providers are not only posting less on the weekends, but are also updating less engaging content?

While it’s difficult to draw too many conclusions from the data, the study provides an interesting glimpse into potential opportunities. It also raises other questions, too: Are car dealers, businesses and brands not exploiting opportunities on the weekend, or are they right to be focusing more on posting during the week?

In an earlier study that looked at Twitter, Socialbakers found that Saturdays had the highest relative engagement rate (engagement rate relative to entire sample of tweets). Last year, research from Buddy Media indicated that brands’ tweets enjoyed higher engagement rates on the weekend.

It’s worth noting that the researchers do offer the requisite disclaimers: results likely differ by industry, market, nature of product or service, audience demographics, and season of the year. (The same caution needs to be applied to questions of email timing.)

Millennial Car Buyers to OEM’s and Dealers:Respond When You’re Being Spoken… “About”

64% of 18-24 year old consumers want companies, including car dealerships and manufacturers to respond to them when they mention the company’s name or brands online…

This conclusion comes from the data contained within a new e-book that showcases and analyzes results from a survey by J.D. Power and Associates and NetBase. The Social Listening and Big Brother eBook by NetBase and J.D. Power and Associates is available for download by ADM Professional Community members using the link provided at the end of this article.

Similar to Millennials, even the older age groups mirror that “we speak, you respond” sentiment… This further showcases an ever increasing need for car companies and dealerships to monitor the social web for mentions of their name, or references to their makes and models of vehicles. As the age demographic segments of the survey results get older, you cannot help but notice that just half of the 55+ group agree with these same sentiments.

It is important and intriguing to note that while the survey results suggest that consumers want companies such as car dealerships and OEM manufacturers to respond to discussions about them online (generally referring to social media), separate results from the survey paint a more confusing picture…

An example of this confusion and possibly a double standard when it comes to online monitoring is that roughly 6 in 10 respondents aged 18-54 want companies to listen to what they say about them online (4 in 10 of the 55+ crowd). While at the same time, about half of the survey’s respondents think that consumers should be able to talk about companies online without those companies listening in. This desire for privacy increases for the 55+ age group, of which 59% do not want companies seeing what they post about them online.

But wait… There’s more (confusion) in these survey results!

Between half and two-thirds of respondents want companies to respond when they’re being discussed online, while the same survey reports that more than 6 in 10 also say that companies should onlyrespond to online comments made directly to them (i.e. on their Facebook page, tweeted to them, etc.) You should download the PDF file of the report and take a look… In my opinion, what we are seeing is the variance based on where and what types of social media these comments are being made that reference a car company, make or dealership by name.

In an attempt at trying to poke fun at their own report’s findings, the authors note that the takeaway for automotive marketers and others who handle social media strategy is that they should be “telepathic.” Perhaps “empathetic” would be a better choice of words and not so much in jest… The next-best advice given is for marketers to:

Automotive Social Marketers should go beyond listening

Try to understand what consumers are saying

Consider the conversation’s context

Deliver mutual value when engaging

Show how listening can be a relationship-building tool rather than an intrusion

Other Findings:

Despite holding all these varied opinions about social media privacy, less than three-quarters of respondents (ranging from 62% of 18-24-year olds to 72% of 45-54-year-olds) know that car companies or dealership employees might be listening to what they’re saying online.

Roughly 4 in 10 respondents aged 18-54 feel that dealerships and car companies listening to online conversations are intruding. That rises to 54% among the 55 and over demographic.

Attitudes regarding whether companies should monitor online conversations to improve products and services vary significantly among age groups, ranging from 40% agreement for the 18-24 set, to 57% for the 45-54 group, and back down to 37% for the 55+ set.

Slightly more respondents believe that a company should respond to them if they make a negative remark about the company in an online post than if they make a positive remark about a company in an online post.

About the Data: J.D. Power and Associates, in association with NetBase, conducted a survey in December 2012 of 1,062 U.S. consumers ages 18–55+.

In regards to the process around a dealership monitoring and then responding to online blogs, comments, posts and discussions where the dealership is brought up or mentioned, I started developing a process and work flow while launching the ADP Social Media Reputation Management Team in 2009 and 2010. The work flow process chart shown below is based on something I saw published by the US Military in regards to how the Air Force responds to online comments and blog posts.

When I left ADP and went to work for Tier10 Marketing at the beginning of 2011, we revised and upgraded the work flow planning for better results and more production efficiency. The chart below reflects the Tier10 Marketing version of what we recommended:

Car Dealers: Social Media Matters When Seeking Your Competitive Advantage in Local Markets

In 2012, more than 1.4 billion people around the world used social networks, up 19% from 2011. But although the worldwide social network audience is enormous, it is by no means unified. Within the North American automotive marketing landscape social media based advertising continues to mature and develop capabilities that are simply unavailable in other media channels. As social networking giants such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and others grow and develop increased business engagement models, their ability to attract marketing and advertising investments from the automotive industry grows.

The chart shown below shows five years of social media based advertising spend with fairly steady growth. I predict a faster rate of growth going into 2014 as the targeting, messaging and creative engagement models provided by social networks continue rapid development and increased effectiveness in achieving automotive marketing objectives.

US Online Social Network Advertising Spend from 2008 to 2013*:

$1.175 billion (2008)

$1.295billion(2009)

$1.335 billion (2010)

$1.420 billion (2011)

$1.515 billion (2012)

$1.640 billion (2013)

Social Network Advertising Spend increases from another perspective*:

*Data source: eMarketer

ADM Professional Community members have access to all the data and insights we publish about social media. You can learn more about social network usage around the world below, but you can learn a lot more by visiting the ADM Professional Community daily. Complete the “Sign Up” form on the upper right of every ADM page to submit a membership application and start the conversation with experienced automotive marketers and people selling more cars using strategies and their tactics within the social media universe.

Usage patterns are highly developed and predictable in some regions, and unstable and changing rapidly in others. And while many people use Facebook, not all social network users do. Facebook has shown many users how to get their most satisfying results from time spent online, this has driven an increased familiarity with online social media in general, and a cottage industry of social networks specializing in specific subject matters. Homegrown social networks, especially those seeking consumers, enthusiasts and influencers in automotive niches will play a larger role over time in most major markets in both the USA and Canada.

Countries such as India and Indonesia are rapidly becoming major usage centers for social networking, particularly via mobile phones, and will each see their user bases grow more than 50% in 2012. This phenomenon, combined with Facebook’s staggering growth in the region, mean that in 2012, the Asia-Pacific region will, for the first time, be home to more Facebook users than North America is. As North American automotive consumers have become more accustomed and skilled at using social networks via their introduction through Facebook, many of them have ventured outside of the social media behemoth to participate in User Generated Content (UGC) sites, specialized blogs and forums, as well as other networks.

In more mature markets like the USA and Canada, automotive marketers are looking to use the social media presences they have already established to deliver relevant content to fans. Social networks are making it easier for businesses, especially car dealers to broadcast changing incentives and promotional offers that create the deals which drive both sales and service recommendations across a wider network of users in real time with improved location and mobile targeting.

With Facebook’s New Ads Manager and the growing maturation of the platform comes an increasing effectiveness for their paid advertising models.

This in turn enables car dealers to leverage user profile based targeting that delivers the right message to the right automotive consumer at the exact right time. More and more North American car dealers are using the growing platform maturity and advertiser responsiveness at Facebook for a competitive advantage over their neighboring dealership competition which has ignored Facebook’s emerging capabilities.

First and foremost, it’s important to understand that Facebook (and social media in general) is a communication tool. It’s a way for businesses to connect with customers and a safe venue through which customers and potential customers can interact with your business.

With that said, let’s look at the other two primary functions of Facebook: marketing and branding. Both are similar. Both are categories that can mean different things to different people and businesses. While it’s definitely possible to do both well on Facebook at the same time, the safer and less time-intensive strategy would be to pick one or the other as the primary goal (outside of communication, of course).

Here are the two basic options. There will be those who will say that it’s being oversimplified, but this isn’t a tutorial. It’s a way to distinguish between the two so that a business can make an intelligent decision about which mindset to take in their efforts. Once the mindset is established, the strategies can form.

Facebook for Branding

This is becoming the more common practice among businesses because it is more open in form and more singular in goal. More importantly, using Facebook as a marketing tool is considered by many to be harder (depending on your business type, of course). Many, particularly those who are engaged with individual customers on a daily basis such as car dealers and realtors will opt for this approach because it gives them the freedom to simply be entertaining or informative without having to put the time into crafting an appropriate marketing strategy.

It’s the easy road, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any less rewarding.

Using Facebook for branding is all about getting your name, logo, and general message out there. The general message is often abstract – it’s not talking about a sale or a particular product but rather trying to convey a company attitude with the message.

This strategy can use popular images, interesting (and sharable) facts, or funny concepts to will encourage liking and sharing. While some take the road of using ideas that are completely off topic, I’m a firm believer that it’s possible to stay focused on either the local area, the industry, or both with every post. In other words, a car dealer shouldn’t be posting pictures of cats. They should be posting pictures of cars, videos of cars, and images or discussions about the local area.

The branding message is easier to spread because it doesn’t involve marketing. There’s no goal of direct conversions or clicks to the website. It’s all about getting the brand out there as much as possible.

The downside, of course, is in proving ROI. Without direct marketing applied to the messages, it’s a leap of faith that by getting interaction and engagement around content that does not lead directly to a lead or a sale but that keeps the name and logo of the business in mind, that there are intangible benefits that are happening.

Facebook for Marketing

Unlike using Facebook for branding, the marketing strategy is trickier. It’s easier to mess up. There’s a risk of actually doing damage to the Facebook account by being too “spammy” with the posts. Those who are not ready to take a little heat on their path to get more conversions should not even go down this road.

However, if your goal is to achieve demonstrable ROI and take what you can today in a concrete manner, this is the right approach. It will rely on Facebook ads. There’s no way around it – unless you’re marketing something that resonates while also being productive such as a funny T-Shirt company, you’re very unlikely to get away with a hardcore marketing message without the use of ads.

Thankfully, Facebook ads are cheap.

Using a marketing strategy on Facebook does not mean that it’s all business. While some I have spoken to on the subject (including a VP at Facebook) have said that businesses can find success by only posting once or twice a week and promoting those marketing posts, I’ve found that a mix of interesting or entertaining content with the marketing messages can be beneficial.

People aren’t going to Facebook to see marketing messages, so yours has to be truly valuable. It’s not about putting up a picture of a car and calling that marketing. It’s about generating messages that they can only get through Facebook. For example, having Facebook-only sales events can be effective with next to zero risk. If people come to the store as a result, awesome! If they do not, then the expenditure was minimal. If they aren’t successful, you shouldn’t give up. You simply need to tweak the message, adjust the advertising, or go through a series of “fun” posts to set up the marketing posts properly.

Don’t Forget Communicating

Regardless of which path you choose, remember the number one rule: Facebook (and social media in general) is about communication. It’s about talking to your customers and having them talk to you. It’s about giving them a venue through which you can be completely open about your business and hold public conversations with unsatisfied customers as well as the happy ones.

Which way fits best with your business? That’s the only real question you need to ask to get started down the right path.